


for so long as a hundred of us are left a-fucking-live

by slavetohiscat



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Post-Canon, Scottish Independence Referendum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 17:56:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5465642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slavetohiscat/pseuds/slavetohiscat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 2014 and, cleared of his criminal charges, Malcolm Tucker goes North at the behest of the party to stop Scotland becoming independent. There's just one problem: he's got to take Nicola Murray with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for so long as a hundred of us are left a-fucking-live

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dafna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dafna/gifts).



A soft knock on the office door. “Malcolm’s in reception.”

“Malcolm Malcolm?”

“Malcolm Tucker Malcolm.”

“Malcolm Fucker Malcolm! Don’t let him in. Under any circumstances.”

Ollie comes barrelling out of his office, glasses askew. “This is a Red Alert emergency, people. I want all hands on deck, all weapons drawn, under no circumstances is—”

“Ollie, my man.” It’s too late. Malcolm is in the building. “You look well. Rosy cheeked. I hope now’s a good time, or were you getting fucked over your desk again?”

Malcolm strides into Ollie’s office and makes a show of looking around. “Don’t worry, he’s hid in a cupboard or something,” he calls back through to the main office.

“Thanks for your help there,” Ollie spits at an underling before walking back into his office. Malcolm has sat behind the desk. In Ollie’s chair. 

“Ollie Breeder. Good to see you. You’ve not changed a bit,” says Malcolm. “Well I expect your arsehole’s a little looser but on the outside you look great, and we work in comms after all so that’s what really matters.”

“What do you want, Malcolm?”

“Straight down to business is it? No ‘Nice to see you’? No ‘Congrats on having your criminal charges dropped’?”

“If you’ve come to beg for a job with me you’re going about it the wrong way. It’s been two months since your court case finished and you’ve got nothing. The whole of Westminster knows you could sit at home waiting until the Internet’s run out of fucking porn but your work phone’s never going to ring again. Or your home phone either come to think of it.”

“I’m a crackwhore and you’re the biggest pimp in town, is that what you want to hear? I’d offer you a blowjob but the man in the cupboard over there might kill me.”

“Perhaps you could write an autobiography…”

“Please. Something. Anything.”

Ollie raises a very delighted eyebrow. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me outside of a Christmas card, Malcolm.”

“I’m going to shank you so hard for making me say ‘please’. You know that, don’t you? I learned a few tricks while I was in police custody.”

*

“I just can’t shake off the feeling that it’s somehow a trap,” Nicola says, as she and Helen stride out of Opposition HQ and hail down a taxi. “Dan Miller’s hated me ever since I won the leadership.”

Helen holds the car door open for Nicola to get in. “The IndyRef’s un-losable and and now Miller’s going to hand you credit for winning it on a plate. Clearly he doesn’t hate you any more.” Then, to the driver, “Kings Cross, please.”

“Now he’s Leader of the Opposition and Malcolm’s out of the picture, I suppose there’s no particular reason for Dan to want to shaft me… The question is, why would he want to help me?”

“Since you’ve left the front bench your polling has gone straight back up again…”

Nicola claps her hands together in glee. “Do you think he’s going to call a general election?”

“I don’t see why else he’d be buttering you up.”

“Why are you acting as though you led me to that conclusion? It was clearly my idea.”

*

Malcolm smiles winningly at the waitress in the restaurant car of the night train to Edinburgh. “A hot chocolate please. It’s lethal that stuff. Only thing that sends me to sleep faster is a Will Self column.”

Over the waitress’s tartan-clad shoulder, Malcolm spies Nicola Murray walking face-first into the glass door to the compartment. “On second thoughts, could you make that a triple whisky and three packs of paracetamol? Thank you, darling, you’re a star.”

Nicola and Emma join Malcolm at his table.

“Those _shit_ ting vestibules. They make me feel so trapped,” mutters Nicola, nursing the arm she just slammed against the door.

“Do I look like a jihadi bomber to you? Because this is a fucking suicide mission. A set up. I don’t mind taking on the shit jobs once in a while, but they’ve given me the only MP who could fuck this up so badly Scotland will physically re-build Hadrian’s fucking wall out of Iron Bru cans and used syringes.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Helen assures Nicola. “All you have to do is read out your speech a few times and make sure you don’t set fire to a Saltire.”

“Says a woman whose only clue about Scottish culture come from repeats of _Monarch of the Glen_ ,” mumbles Malcolm into his newly arrived whisky.

“Can I have one of those too, please?” says Nicola.

*

A few more whiskeys later, Nicola opens the door to Malcolm’s private sleeper berth without knocking.

“I didn’t know you felt that way about me, Nicola,” he says, putting down the book he was reading and bearing his teeth.

“Look,” she says, “Ollie’s sent us up here because he knows we’ll be at each other’s throats. But neither of us have much to lose right now, do we?”

Malcolm glares at Nicola in silence as she hovers in the doorway.

“Helen’s right about this trip,” continues Nicola. “It’s a Mickey Mouse mission. All we have to do is not kill each other for a few weeks. They can we can return triumphant and be back in the party’s good books. We’ll never have to talk to each other again.”

Malcolm continues to glare at her. “Are you coming in or fucking off you dithering fucking dimwit? I’m not going to be much use to you if my bollocks freeze off, am I?”

Nicola comes into the compartment and closes the door behind her. “Well? Isn’t this what you want? I’ll do exactly what you say and all you have to do is promise not to shout at me.”

Malcolm nods. “I think you’re underestimating how easy this is going be,” he says, “but alright. Yes. We can win this. As long as you do exactly what I fucking tell you to. And help me screw Reader when we get back to London.”

“That’s a given. And the shouting?”

“Let’s be fucking realistic, shall we?”

*

“She’s come in person? Bad news for us then.” Peter Mannion had been looking forward to a quiet morning.

Terri leads him out of his office to the open-plan area, where Fergus, Adam, Emma, Phil and the rest are already gathered around Mary Drake, who has long-since settled into her new role as Government Director of Communications.

Peter plasters a smile on his face. “Do what do we owe this pleasure? I hope you come bearing good news.”

“Don’t I always, Peter? The PM needs someone to visit the Trident nuclear base to show that the government has absolutely no concerns about its safety.”

“Aha,” says Peter, “We’ll be sad to lose Fergus for a few days but I’m sure we’ll all muddle along without him.”

Adam is ready to leap to Fergus’s defence, as always. “Nice try, Peter, but we need to send someone expendable in case it does blow up.”

*

A photographer-and-journalist team are waiting at Waverly Station when Nicola, Malcolm and Helen alight from the train.

“Only _one_ journalist, Helen?” says Nicola under her breath. Helen ignores her.

“Mrs Murray! Mrs Murray! Do you think it’s fair to say Scotland’s a political graveyard?”

“Not at all,” Nicola smiles a bit too widely at the journalist. “I think Scotland is a very politically relevant place.”

“Why did the Shadow Cabinet send _you_ here then?”

“Well, I may have got no sleep to speak of on the train last night,” says Nicola in at attempt at friendly conversation. “But I really am feeling very positive about today!”

“Was the Caledonian sleeper train not good enough for you?” asks the journalist.

Nicola’s smile becomes very forced all of a sudden. “Well, I, well—“

Helen steps in. “Mrs Murray’s first speech is at eleven, so we’ve got time to do some normalcy photo calls. Can we get porridge anywhere around here? Mrs Murray is keen to appreciate the local delicacies.”

Malcolm, thus far silent at Nicola’s side, suddenly tenses. He’s spotted something. “Alright, Nicola, remember to smile. Look good humoured. You can take a joke,” he says quietly.

“Oh Christ, what’s happening now?” says Nicola, looking about her.

“It’s seven am for fuck’s sake!” says Helen as she watches a man dressed in a giant Loch Ness Monster costume descend the stairs down onto the platform and run towards them.

“Just what I need,” mutters Nicola though her fixed smile as the photographer starts to snap away. “We’re three minutes into the campaign and look what a shitting disaster it’s going to be.”

The Loch Ness Monster man waves his tail for the camera and offers Nicola a can of Iron Bru.

“Malcolm, are you crying?” says Helen in surprise.

Malcolm, indeed, is wiping away a tear. “I’m so proud of my country,” he says.

*

“Right then!”

“Right!”

“This is exciting!”

“I’m buzzing!”

“Right then!”

Fergus and Adam enter DoSAC’s main office, fresh from an orientation meeting at the local.

“Where’s Robyn?”

They find her in the kitchenette, making a tea round.

“Do you want anything?” she says, surprised because she didn’t know they knew where the kitchenette was.

“It’s your lucky day, Robyn,” says Adam, putting a hand around her shoulders.

“Is it? Please don’t touch me, actually. I don’t like to be touched.”

Adam releases her while Fergus continues the charm offensive. “We’re launching our new School Dinners initiative tomorrow and, as Terri’s away up in Scotland, you get to write the press release!”

“Oh, really? Yes, that is good news I suppose. I’ll phone her this afternoon to get a quote from Peter.”

Adam sighs. “The whole point is to do this without Terri’s enormous bosom getting in the way.”

“Have you actually got a double stamp for this initiative of yours?”

Fergus slams his fist on the draining board. It makes a satisfying metallic thwack. “Come on Adam, we’re wasting our time here. Terri’s clearly trained this one in the dark arts of blockage so well that she’s bent the fucking plumbing out of all recognition and nobody’s going to ever flush this fucking toilet of a department ever again!”

*

“Ok, Peter, let’s go over everything one more time.” Helen has been made irritable by the long car journey to Faslane, immediately following, as it did, the long train journey from London to Helensburgh.

“There is nothing to go over!” exclaims Peter. He too has become irritable over the long journey, but his personal irritation is more to do with the phone calls from his wife about the incompetence of their new gardener than it is to do with the journey itself. 

“Trident is safe as houses. Britain is safe as houses. No, there is no danger here, thank you very much,” supplies Phil with a winning smile at Emma. She does not look won over.

“Who would have thought,” says Peter, “that my line, on a visit whose purpose is to show that the government is confident Trident is safe, would involve saying that Trident is safe? How blesséd I am to have advisers who are not afraid to give counterintuitive advice.”

“The most important thing is to avoid the Referendum at all costs,” says Terri brightly. “All you can say is that you don’t know what will happen to Trident in the event of a Yes vote, and that you hope it’s a problem you won’t have to deal with.”

Of all of those sent to Faslane, Terri is the only one with even an ounce of cheer left in her. She felt she had bonded with Peter on the train journey by supplying him with opinions about how his wife’s garden ought to be, and how the new gardner ought to go about doing it.

There is a brief silence, during which everyone watches fir trees whiz past the car windows.

“Why do we want Scotland to stay in the Union anyway?” says Peter suddenly. “It would make elections much easier.”

“JK Rowling,” supplies Phil immediately. Emma continues not to look impressed.

“It’s oil,” she corrects, “oil and grouse driving.”

“Not even you can think hunting is more important than __Harry P_ …_!“ Phil trails off as his attention is caught by the anti-nuclear protest camps that suddenly loom up on either side of the car as it approaches the big wire gates of the Trident camp.

“And there’s whisky, I suppose,” says Terri, smiling up at Peter as she reaches over to undo his seatbelt for him.

*

The compere, a minor royal or journalist of some sort, is declaring loudly to the room—actually quite a small room at the front of the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh—but the Rt. Hon. Nicola Murray isn’t listening even a little bit.

Helen feels a tap on her arm. Nicola has written a note on the side of her notepad. _Fucking starving. Can you get me a baguette or something?_

Indeed, the team’s attempts to find a porridge-based photo call had not gone well. The first shop they tried was closed until midday. The second only had porridge so salty that Nicola wasn’t able to smile while forcing herself to eat it. The third refused to serve them altogether and retreated to the back of the shop before Malcolm could open his mouth.

Helen writes back: _You’re on next. I’d better stick around._

Nicola sighs.

The minor royal points at her and there’s lukewarm applause, so Nicola gets up and heads towards him. They clash awkwardly at the podium, him going for a cheek and her going for a handshake. 

“Thank you, er, you,” begins Nicola. “It’s such a pleasure to visit Scotland at last. You probably recognise my surname. I mean, of course you do, I used to be the Leader of the Opposition, but what mean is Murray is a Scottish surname. My family traces its history back to Scotland you know…”

Malcolm slowly puts his head in his hands.

“What?” whispers Helen.

“There’s nothing Scottish people hate more than other people pretending to be Scottish. She might as well be wearing a fucking Texan oil-tycoon hat and a stars-and-stripes bejazzle.”

In the window behind Nicola, the man dressed as the Loch Ness Monster appears and starts jumping up and down. He waves a home-made sign: _Nessie <3s Quiet Bat People_.

Helen starts signalling at Nicola, but Malcolm puts a steading hand on her arm. “You might as well fuck off and fetch that fucking baguette.”

*

Adam strides around the room in circles pumping on a stress ball while Fergus types frantically into Terri’s computer. If they can’t do ministerial work, they might as well do party work.

“Got it!” crows Fergus. “You were right.”

“I’m rock hard right now,” replies Adam.

“She does have Scottish ancestry—very distantly—back to the Dukes of Atholl. Who began the fucking Highland Clearances.”

“I think this calls for a dial five!”

“Fucking yaaas!”

Adam holds up his phone, a phone number ready to go, and Fergus hits it in mid-air to connect the call.

*

Somewhere in the _Daily Mail_ offices, Angela Heaney’s phone rings.

*

Nicola, Malcolm and Helen walk quickly through the crowds outside the Balmoral, the main the Loch Ness Monster costume but a few paces behind.

“Mrs Murray has no comment to make at this time,” says Malcolm loudly to the crowd. “Fucking fuck off you macaroni pie-guzzling Saltards.”

“ _Patronising Highland-Clearance Cow Pats Scotland on the Head_ ,” reads Helen from her iPhone.

“ _So Scotland really is just a country estate to these cunts_ ,” supplies Malcolm from his Blackberry. “That’s the Major of Glasgow on Twitter, that is.”

“Can we just—walk away, please?” says Nicola. “I don’t—want—to know.”

“ _Thunder-tits Thunder-fucks up Tour of Shame within Four Hours,_ ” says Malcolm. “That one’s just me. I’ll text it to Ollie.”

“Well thank you, Malcolm, you were really useful back there.” Nicola looks like she’s going to say more—

When she’s hit full across the back by a raw egg. It smashes and splatters all over her coat.

Malcolm laughs out loud. “This,” he shouts to the sky, “is fecking brilliant!”

*

“What do you mean a fucking fish supper only has one piece of fish in it?” says Malcolm, leaning right over the counter of the fish-and-shops shop. “One piece is no use to me. I’ll have two pieces, or I’ll shove this one so far down your nostrils it’ll think it’s back in the sea. And don’t even look at that so-called chippie sauce.”

Malcolm returns to the window seat with four paper packs of fish and chips. Nicola, Helen, and the man in the Loch Ness Monster costume all look a bit worse for wear.

“How much is it?” asks the man in the Loch Ness Monster costume.

“Wouldn’t hear of it. My treat.” Malcolm waves him away. “I don’t know why you’re looking so miserable, Nicola.”

“I’ve single-handedly lost the entire Independence Referendum!,” says Nicola. “What do you expect?”

“I’d just like to point out,” interjects Helen, “that nowhere in your file does it say you have a family history of forcing Highlanders from their crofts.”

“Now is really not the fucking time to try and cover your tracks, Helen,” says Nicola dangerously.

“You’re both so wrong!” says Malcolm. “Do you not see this means we can all go home early? Curl up in bed with a mug of steaming fucking bat juice or whatever it is you like to do?”

Nicola shoves chips into her mouth like they’re her last lifeline to sanity.

“We’ve won, Nicola. I just need a single interview from you and you’ve eaten the whole soggy biscuit. The content of your speech just now is going to be _miles_ from the news agenda.”

Malcolm returns to the chippie counter. “And can I get a deep-friend Mars bar please? It’s for a friend.” He smiles warmly at the man dressed as the Loch Ness Monster.

*

On the late-night train back to London, Peter Mannion and his entourage gather around Terri’s phone to watch the News at Ten.

“Why is is flickering?” says Phil.

“Not a great signal on these trains,” says Terri. “But it’s pretty impressive we can watch it all when you think about—“

“—Oh do shut up, Terri!” Emma’s temper had not improved throughout the day. “We all want to actually watch this.”

The speech at Trident had gone well, almost suspiciously well. Peter had said nothing controversial, no protesters had broken into the compound and set it on fire, nobody had even mentioned that the base was in Scotland.

“You know,” says Peter, “This may well turn out to be the biggest political triumph of my career since getting a Ministry.”

Emma and Phil nod enthusiastically in agreement. Peter glares at them.

*

“Good Evening, this is The News at Ten. I’m Fiona Bruce. The headlines tonight: Nicola Murray has called off her hundred-day pro-Union tour of Scotland after just five hours, following an egg attack on Princes Street, Edinburgh.” 

*

A phone-grab clip of the egg smashing across Nicola’s back. In the background, Malcolm’s face breaking into a wide grin.

*

Cut to Dan Miller being interviewed in his office in Opposition HQ. “Mrs Murray went to Scotland in the spirit of reasoned debate, but was subjected to unprecedented verbal, physical, and Internet abuse as soon as she stepped off the train. This is a co-ordinated, determined, and increasingly aggressive attempt to stifle reasoned debate.”

*

Cut to Alex Salmond, a rushed comment on the steps of the Scottish Parliament: “I can only condemn the actions of those who attended Mrs Murray’s speech with the intention to disrupt it. I would make the appeal that everyone participating in this debate should be conscious that we want to have a debate which is worthy of the importance of the decisions which are being made.”

*

Back to Fiona Bruce. “Infamous Yes-Campaigner Willie Lindsay, best known for his trademark Loch Ness Monster costume, has been arrested pending charges for Internet trolling. The SNP’s harsh new anti-cybernaut laws will be put to test for the first—“

*

Back on the train to London, Terri sets down her phone with a long sigh. “Well, they do say that no news is good news.”

“Oh do shut up, Terri,” says Peter Mannion, turning to stare out of the window into the black night outside.

*

One of Ollie’s aides snaps off the television.

“You are such a retard,”says Ollie lazily. “Turn it back on.”

“Malcolm Tucker’s in reception, Ollie!”

“Didn’t I ask to have his pass securities changes for fuck’s—hello, Malcolm, how good to see you!”

Malcolm strides into the office and slaps a paper bag of chips and a deep-fried Mars bar on the table. “I brought you a present from Scotland, Ollie. It’s a dildo to shaft yourself with.”

“Malcolm, you have fucked this one up royally—“ warns Ollie.

“David, could you get Ollie a glass of piss to swallow his medicine with please?” says Malcolm to one of the aides, who is probably not called David but scuttles off nonetheless.

“Right then,” continues Malcolm. “I have come directly from Dan Miller’s private house, where I was just given a very, very sloppy blow job indeed and re-instated as Director of Communications. This is a show of the party’s respect for and trust in Scotland—at least, those who can take part in reasoned debate. And get Nicola fucking Murray to make the nationalists look like the nut jobs they are.”

Ollie opens and closes his mouth like a fish.

“Your first job, assuming you don’t accidentally digest this Mars bar through your grasping anus and die immediately of a heart attack, is to go find Murray and make sure she doesn’t do or say anything in public for at least the next three months. Can you do that?”

Ollie visibly shrinks in his desk chair. “Yes, you, er, fucker, you.”


End file.
